However, I know a lot of you guys will enjoy the video Personally, I think there’s no right or wrong answer. Someone suggested it should have been entitled “Things to say to someone with cancer” and there’s something in that I guess – although I suspect it’s just as difficult!

This video was produced by BBC and shared by my friends in Macmillan Cancer Support, and it’s getting a huge number of comments and opinions. I’ve dabbled in this arena before with my blogs “I look well but you should see my insides” and “You must be doing OK, you’ve not had chemotherapy”. It’s really difficult to know what to say, knowing how they might react and it’s particularly difficult if you don’t really know the person, for example on social media, you could be talking to someone who you have never met, you don’t know anything about them and they may not even speak English as a first language (those who have tried google/twitter or Facebook translator, will know it’s not perfect!). Even as a person with cancer, I sometimes feel awkward when faced with someone I just found out has a serious illness. Most people (not all) are just stumped to know exactly what to say. in fact everywhere! Personally, I don’t tend to get too excited about it, although there can be extremes.

This topic comes up regularly on patient forums, twitter, Facebook….

How to you pronounce cachexia